Howard hails North Korea disarmament deal

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Prime Minister John Howard has welcomed North Korea's pledge to
give up nuclear weapons. In an accord finalised yesterday, North
Korea agreed to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It will let International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back
in after kicking them out in December 2002, in return for aid and
security pledges.

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says Australia must
now increase its economic and humanitarian assistance to North
Korea to help it stick to its pledge to abandon its nuclear weapons
program.

World leaders and observers have warned, however, that North
Korea's pledge is not a foregone conclusion, but rather a first
step - and Pyongyang has since said that it will not dismantle its
nuclear weapons program until the US provides it with a light-water
reactor for generating electricity.

"The US should not even dream of the issue of the DPRK's
dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing LWRs
(light-water reactors), a physical guarantee for
confidence-building," a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Breakthrough

Speaking in Melbourne today, Mr Howard said the agreement was "a
very significant development".

"If the in-principle agreement is translated into a reassuring
detailed outcome, we can look back on it as being a significant
step back from what was a very dangerous situation for our own
region and the entire world," Mr Howard said.

He congratulated those involved in the negotiations and said
North Korea must be left to adhere to the terms of any final
agreement.

"North Korea has made agreements in the past and broken them,
but we have to take everything step by step," he said.

"The in-principle agreement is a breakthrough, and there will be
a mechanism to provide for detailed inspections, and that will be
carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency, so that if
there is a breach in the future that will be identified.

"Obviously this is a better outcome than a total breakdown and
I'd hope the breaches of the past are not repeated in the
future.

"We are all right to be cautious, but we shouldn't be so
negative as to pretend that it is not a welcome development."

Big interest

Mr Rudd called the agreement was a "fantastic development", and
said Australia should do what it could to help make the deal
stick.

"Australia has a very big interest at stake in making sure that
this agreement to de-nuclearise North Korea and de-nuclearise the
Korean peninsula holds," Mr Rudd said.

"Our part in that deal is to provide appropriate levels of
economic and humanitarian assistance to the Government of Pyongyang
and to the people of North Korea to make this deal stick."

He said Australia should be cautious about what North Korea
would do from here.

"Based on experience with North Korea, a lot can still go wrong,
but this is a huge step in the right direction and the alternatives
frankly are just too terrible to contemplate."

Now to Iran

He said the next country to turn attention to was Iran.

"We still face, however, a huge nuclear challenge when it comes
to Iran," Mr Rudd said.

"Let's hope that the same level of success that we have achieved
now over several years to the six-party talks in Korea can now be
applied to how we deal with the difficult challenges represented by
the new government in Tehran."